Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denied on Wednesday that Hamas had agreed to the Gaza ceasefire proposal from Qatari mediators, after an Israeli official said the Palestinian terrorist group had given its approval.

Israeli media channels had reported that, following the green light from Hamas, the deal would be formally announced on Thursday and would come into effect on Sunday with the release of the first of the hostages.

However the prime minister’s office said Hamas had not communicated its answer to the proposal.

“Contrary to reports, the Hamas terror organization has not yet returned its response to the deal,” the prime minister’s office said.

Meanwhile, negotiators in Qatar resumed talks on Wednesday hoping to hammer out the final details of a complex, phased ceasefire in Gaza aiming to end a conflict that has upended the Middle East.

Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt, and the US as well as Israel and Hamas said on Tuesday that an agreement for a truce in the Palestinian enclave and the release of hostages was closer than ever.

But a senior Hamas official told Reuters late on Tuesday that the Palestinian terrorist group had not yet delivered its response because it was still waiting for Israel to submit maps showing how its forces would withdraw from Gaza.

During months of on-off talks to achieve a truce in the devastating 15-month-old war, both sides have previously said they were close to a ceasefire only to hit last-minute obstacles. The broad outlines of the current deal have been in place since mid-2024.

If successful, the phased ceasefire — capping over a year of start-and-stop talks — could halt fighting in Gaza that is still ongoing between Israel and Hamas, which launched the war with its invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023.

That in turn could ease tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has fueled conflict in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Iran.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the conflict when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Jerusalem responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.

Under the ceasefire plan being discussed, Israel would recover around 100 remaining hostages and bodies from among those captured in the Oct. 7 attacks. In return it would free Palestinian detainees, who were largely imprisoned in Israel for terrorism activities.

The latest draft is complicated and sensitive. Under its terms, the first steps would feature a six-week initial ceasefire.

The plan also includes a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to the north of the enclave.

The deal would also require Hamas to release 33 Israeli hostages along with other steps.

The draft stipulates negotiations over a second phase of the agreement to begin by the 16th day of phase one. Phase two includes the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

Even if the warring sides agree to the deal on the table, that agreement still needs further negotiation before there is a final ceasefire and the release of all the hostages

If it all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a massive task involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.

One unanswered question is who will run Gaza after the war.

Israel has rejected any involvement by Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war, but it has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority must be the sole governing power in Gaza after the war.

Israel says 98 hostages are being held in Gaza, about half of whom are believed to be alive. They include Israelis and non-Israelis. Of the total, 94 were seized in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and four have been held in Gaza since 2014.

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i24 News — Representatives of the Irish Jewish community oppose President Michael D. Higgins giving the main speech at the Holocaust remembrance ceremony scheduled for Jan. 26 in Dublin, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, according to a report Tuesdsay in The Irish Times.

Maurice Cohen, president of the Representative Council of the Jewish Community in Ireland, slammed Higgings: “It’s not his criticisms of Israel; it’s his false criticism of Israel.”

He cited a controversy over an alleged leak of a presidential letter by the Israeli embassy, when it actually appeared on the Iranian embassy’s website. Cohen added that, despite this, he maintains good personal relationships with the president.

The Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yoni Wieder, accused the president of not sufficiently recognizing or combating the rise of antisemitism in the country.

Higgings “neglected even to acknowledge the scourge of contemporary antisemitism in Ireland, let alone do anything to address it.”

“It is so important that Irish politicians and public figures come together to honor the memory of victims of the Holocaust. Yet the awful irony is that many of them are turning a blind eye to a troubling increase in anti-Jewish hatred in Ireland today.”

“Given President Higgins’s grave insensitivity to Irish Jews, we are deeply disturbed that he will yet again cause further insult,” said Oliver Sears, from the Holocaust Awareness Ireland organization. The event, he said, is a “sombre, precious, and inviolable” one for the Jewish community.

A spokesperson for the president, meanwhile, reiterated Higgins’ claim that he is committed to fighting antisemitism, referring to a speech in Manchester last April where he lamented the Irish Jewish community being unfairly being asked to “choose a side” in the Middle East conflict. The presidency also attempted to smooth over certain controversies, including Higgins’ comments concerning Egypt and an Israeli proposal to settle Palestinians there, and not Israelis as some had interpreted.

Higgins has given a speech at the annual event six times in past years, and is still expected to participate in the ceremony.

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JNS.org — Israel Defense Forces soldiers operating in Syria have confiscated more than 3,000 weapons and other gear belonging to the former Syrian Armed Forces since the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, the army stated on Wednesday.

Among the 3,300 assets seized from Syrian territory, the Technological and Logistics Directorate’s Intelligence and Technical Haul Collection Unit seized firearms, anti-tank missiles and RPG systems, mortar shells, explosive devices, observation equipment, and two tanks, the army said.

Since the start of the current war, which was sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel, IDF troops have seized more than 170,000 hostile assets from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria, according to the IDF.

Forces of the IDF’s 210th “Bashan” Division continue operations inside Syria to “provide security and protection for the residents of Israel and the Golan Heights in particular,” Wednesday’s IDF statement noted.

Since the fall of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Assad regime, Israeli forces have taken up positions inside and beyond the Golan buffer zone, including on the strategic Syrian side of Mount Hermon. The Israeli Air Force has conducted hundreds of strikes on former Assad military assets to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile forces.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar vowed on Jan. 2 that Jerusalem would not allow another massacre to take place “on any front,” writing on social media after a visit to IDF soldiers serving on the Syrian border.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group and the nation’s de facto leader, has asked the United States to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Golan buffer zone and the peak of Mount Hermon.

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